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Acer Aspire D270 Windows 7 Migration HD to SSD

I recently picked up an Acer Aspire D270 netbook. It’s a bit slow with running Windows 7 and only 1GB of RAM. But it’s cheap, thin, and light, which are perfect qualities for using this on my upcoming bicycle tour.

I decided to upgrade to 2GB of RAM and replace the hard drive with a solid state drive (SSD). That would help speed up the computer and make it more durable for the bicycle tour. Both are reasonably priced upgrades nowadays.

With most netbooks, it’s rather simple to access the RAM and the hard drive, just a few screws to remove on the bottom. But not this netbook, I’ll share a couple of photos, though I’ll spare the exact details since there’s lots of sites and how to videos. First the keyboard has to be pried off. That was the major annoyance, the only thing I could find thin enough yet strong enough to fit in between was a steak knife. Continue reading →

Lone Pine Canyon Ride

After a bit of a hiatus, I’m finally starting to do some of the more challenging rides near my mountain cabin. The Amgen Tour of California has gone through Lone Pine Canyon, but only in the downhill direction.  It would be nice to see them ride it uphill as I did.

Here is the route on Strava.

Now for some photos from the ride. Continue reading →

New Wilson Sleek 4G-V Cellular Signal Booster

I bought the Wilson Sleek 4G-V in order to boost my Verizon 4G LTE cellular signal at the mountain cabin. But first I gave it a try at home. It’s designed for mounting in a car, but I also bought the separate Home/Office Accessory Kit which includes a desktop cradle, a suction cup window mount for the antenna, and an AC adapter. Here is a photo of everything except the carrying case. Continue reading →

Verizon 4G LTE in Wrightwood – Finally!

One day back in March, I was walking around town, and my Verizon iPhone 5 switched from 3G to 4G LTE! But only one bar of signal. Continue reading →

Today’s 40 Mile Ride

First “long” ride in a while. Solo, but saw lots of others out and about. Thought I’d take the camera along and share. Link to map of route on Strava. Continue reading →

Outdoor Home Office

I work from a home office, and now with the warmer weather (at least in Southern California) I’ve been looking to spend some of that time working outside. Though the biggest obstacle to doing so is being able to see my laptop screen in the sunlight. So I bought a Compushade for my laptop, here’s what it looks like in my outdoor home office. Continue reading →

Bicycling – and Would You Believe Running? – Goals for 2013

In late 2011, I started a new job. One key attraction was that I could work from home instead of in an office.

So in 2012, one would have thought I’d have a lot more time for riding. Well, yes and no. Although I now had the flexibility for lunch rides a few days a week, I didn’t have that “need” to ride when I bicycle commuted to work a few days a week at the old job. It’s been easy to put off a lunch ride if I’m in the rhythm with something at work, or when I make it out for a ride, it’s easy to feel rushed to get back in time to get some more work done. Furthermore, even though I don’t race, I usually have a 4-7 day bicycle tour each year as a training goal, but sadly enough not that year. While I still got in a bunch of rides, I feel like I was just floating around aimlessly, without any real fitness goals. Continue reading →

Technology at the Mountain Cabin

I’ve posted many times here on this blog about my latest gizmos at my cabin in the Southern California mountains, but it’s been piecemeal and I’ve never summarized everything in one place. Hence, this post.

Below is a photo of my “network closet” in the crawl space. I use the crawl space because it says relatively cool in the summer, which is best for the electronics. The inside of the cabin, as well as the attic, can get pretty hot in the summer when it’s all boxed up in our absence. In most places, condensation on the equipment would be an issue, but here the outdoor and crawl space humidity is very low year round. The crawl space location also kept everything away from the renters, back when we were using this as a vacation rental. Yet despite the apparent tight quarters in the photo, it’s still easy access, as the access opening is immediately to the right, just outside the frame of the photo.

Continue reading →

Silverado Canyon Rain Surprise

I had planned to go for a ride this morning, but rain was in the forecast. While I’ve cycled in the rain before and don’t mind doing so, the afternoon was forecast to be clearing up, so I waited until then. Even so, I still had to decide whether to use my “rain bike” or my “fast bike”. I decided to use the fast bike, as the roads were drying up quickly.

So I headed out towards Santiago Canyon with partly cloudy skies, and rather than do the normal loop, I wanted to mix things up with the Silverado Canyon out and back.

I started to see a few sprinkles as I made the turn into Silverado Canyon. It started to rain harder as I continued to climb through the canyon, until it was downpouring right at the Maple Springs turnaround point. Continue reading →

New Cradlepoint MBR95 Router for Cabin

I’m at a crossroads with my internet connection at the mountain cabin, in a small town with a population of 5,000. A long time ago, I got the most basic DSL connection, 1.0 Mbps, good enough for remote access to the thermostat and the webcams. That was long before streaming movies and working from home, so now it is too slow. But Verizon has run out of capacity in town, and no new connections or speed upgrades are available. Continue reading →